Gillian Keegan: guidance does not need to legally “define what a girl is”.

[TheNoWord]

Interview in Sunday Times tomorrow

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e4e7f968-8eb2-11ed-a303-61858d68dcd6?shareToken=98e0e41c946c1aeea295dc21965f41e6

“Keegan supports the idea of “safe spaces” for biological women but says the guidance does not need to legally “define what a girl is”. Rather it should set out how individuals can be supported.”

“I’m very clear what a woman is . . . and that includes me . . . but it doesn’t include anybody that has a penis,” she says. “But I think the most important thing that we need to do is to make sure that we sensitively support children and families and that we accommodate them in the best way we can.”

@Needmoresleep, this is a thread about Gillian Keegan, the Tory minister for Education, I am disrupting nothing and have been nothing but polite despite the Ad homs aimed at me.

My objectives are the rights and safety of women. While posters are entitled to minimise the damage caused, and yet to be caused, by this government I do not have to validate it or accept it quietly. So I will continue to noisily point out the continued destruction of our rights.

I am not a they. I am she.

For a former civil servant you seem remarkably unnuanced. You will be aware of the different constraints on politicians and the fact that it might not always be possible to achieve objectives by using a specific tactic. Specifically noisy is not always the best approach.

The danger of repeating a single point in a noisy way is that it can disrupt any wider discussion others are trying to have. You may feel that their points are not worth hearing, but equally they may consider your interventions disruptive.

Probably should have quoted your post in my reply.

What wider discussion am I disrupting by holding the government to account on a thread about Department of Education guidance?

To be honest if you can see a debate beyond simply slamming the Tories, there probably is no wider discussion. To avoid disruption to other conversation you might start your own threads.

This is not a Tory Members thread in the Politics Topic. This is FWR where the government should be challenged on their destruction of women's rights. Including the Education Minister's part in that.

I will not be silent. If Tory supporters need a space to talk where their party, the Government, cannot be criticised maybe FWR isn't the place for that.

What…I doubt many on the thread are Tory party members. However it is the Government of the day and people will want to discuss their approach to schools policy.

Slagging off a single party, gets you nowhere. Which presumably as a former, impartial, Civil Servant you already know.

Sex is biology. It should not be a party political issue. In the same way that 100 years ago working class and upper class women worked together to get sufferage.

I am not merely slagging off a single party, I am challenging the ongoing assault on women's rights by our government. The destruction that is happening today under the Tories!

When the next government come along I will criticise them.

There is no constructive criticism. It is just slagging. Especially if you plan to use the same approach regardless of who is in power.

The real problem is that your posting is repetitive, regardless of thread, and regardless of whether a Labour or Conservative politician is being discussed.

What would you prefer GK did given the constraints of her position?

Given you were a Civil Servant I am surprised you approach things from a political rather than policy angle. I met DH working for the Civil Service and we tend to analyse different policies (COVID, inflation, women, whatever) for their own sake rather than on a party political basis. It is a habit I assume others have.

Labour will bring in self-ID as a matter of course won’t they?

What constructive criticism would you like? That men should not be in single sex spaces? That women and girls' safety and dignity should be protected by this government, when instead they are whittling them away day by day? Perhaps that the Tories should come clean on how far they've pushed this self ID shitshow, apologise and sort it out instead of being ambiguous, lying or kicking the can down the road as they are doing.

I think you're placing a ridiculous amount of importance on a job I had 26 years ago @Needmoresleep. I'm 26 years older. 13 years into a Tory government that has and continues to strip us off our rights. And a whole lot angrier.

I am not an equal opportunities critic for all parties, I'm only concerned with the one with the actual power. I have no time for gazing into an imaginary future when the fight is happening now!

Do you have a link to that Conservatives For Women newsletter @Needmoresleep? I visited their website but couldn't find it.

You can sign up for it here:

conservativesforwomen.org/join-us

Thank you @RPMcMurphy.